Top 408 Quotes & Sayings by Robin Williams - Page 5

But if there's love, dear... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.

"It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, [the alcohol] will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of? "Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness and anxiety." He added, "For that first week you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years, and finally you do stop."

Stand-up is the place where you can do things that you could never do in public. Once you step on stage you're licensed to do that. It's an understood relationship. You walk on stage - it's your job.

My childhood was really nice. My parents never forced me to do anything; it was always, "If you want to do that, fine." When I told my father I was going to be an actor, he said, "Fine, but study welding just in case."

I don't practice anything. I spend time looking over ideas and then just get out and do it.

Taking Viagra after open heart surgery is like a Civil War re-enactment with live ammo. Not good.

It's been a tough year. . . Someone said I should send out Buddhist thank-you cards since Buddhists believe that anything that challenges you makes you pull yourself together.

I was an only child. I did have kind of like a lonely existence.

Don't mess with me, man, I'm a lawyer!

In down times I do things like go for a long bike ride or run. The other thing I'm doing in that quiet time is just observing.

The little idiosyncrasies that only I know about: that's what made her my wife. Oh she had the goods on me too, she knew all my little peccadilloes. People call these things imperfections, but they're not. Ah, that's the good stuff!

A lot of celebrities golf because they want to be away. For them it's a chance to get away and be peaceful. For me it's peaceful to ride [cycling].

His golf bag does not contain a full set of irons.

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

Now you can't even carry a nail clipper on a plane. Are they afraid you're going to go..."All right! Give me the plane or the b*tch loses her cuticle." ?

I've never had a "hankering" to direct. I can perform, but I can't write on that level. I tend to go off on tangents. Directing also requires a kind of specificity and I don't have it.

We were romantics. We didn't just read poetry. We let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared. Women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?

My preference is live performance. Because you get the feedback. There's an energy. It's live theater. That's why I think actors like that. You know, musicians need it, comedians definitely need it. It doesn't matter what size and what club, whether it's 30 people in the club or 2,000 in a hall or a theater. It's live, it's symbiotic, you need it.

I love running cross-country...You come up a hill and see two deer going, 'What the hell is he doing?' On a track I feel like a hamster.

Directing requires great discipline, that ability to be in and out at the same time. The great ones I've worked with are like generals. It's a bit like a small war on that level. The great ones have that combination of freedom and control. I'm nowhere near that. There's still so much to do as an actor. I have enough to explore with that.

I got to ninth grade and there was wrestling, and I went, 'Wait a minute, this is fun.' Basically, it was a chance for a small kid like me to get a chance to wail on another small kid. I went, 'I love this.' The discipline of it was great. Plus, I really started to be good at it.

When I'm riding my bicycle I feel like a Buddhist who is happy just to enjoy his mundane existence

Whenever a big white man picks up a banjo, my cheeks tighten.

2020. There'll be cold fusion. We'll actually be able to power our cars with our own feces. That's right. The emissions problem will be a little intense, but just light a match.

Jamie Kilstein is amazing and I will be spreading the word. He has the spark that energized my conscience. We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night

You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous. And then you realize, no, actually if you take a break people might be more interested in you.

How much more can you give? Other than, literally, open-heart surgery onstage? Not much. But the only cure you have right now is the honesty of going, this is who you are. I know who I am.

Three wishes - no substitutes, exchanges or refunds

I thought I was fooling people. But it's the old thing of 'they say vodka doesn't smell'. No, not until you sweat. And you just lie and lie and you think 'I can deal with this'. And then you finally go, 'No you can't'. And then you give up.

I have no desire to go anywhere near drugs. People say, "Aren't you tempted?" No, because of the ridiculousness of it.

I feel like I'm a big human snot.

I did an event in Washington, and it was like we lifted a sea.Immediately after [9/11], there was a stunned shock - kind of this feeling of "What do we do now?" I started performing, and there was a catharsis in the laughing. People started to be able to laugh again. Laughter can be many things - sometimes a medicine, sometimes a weapon, depending on.

I had my back waxed once by two women... and at one point they said, Do you mind if we take a break?

I had to stop drinking alcohol, because I used to wake up nude in front of my car with my keys in my ass.

You appreciate little things, like walks on the beach with a defibrillator.

Friends come in all sizes, take it from me! Golly gee, size doesn't matter, when you want some friendly patter from a pal who is true.

Things that I see in the future. I see... it could be quite incredible if we can master a few problems, like the air and the water thing might be nice. I see governments dissolving these barriers are all falling down for economic reasons. They're all so interbound.

People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, 'I don't have that button.'

I prefer to be handcuffed at home. The idea of voice work to me is great fun, especially when it's a chance to do two different voices.

Even evangelicals realize that Pinocchio's father was a carpenter too. That's the old joke.

The first time I tried organic wheat bread, I thought I was chewing on roofing material

If you want to die, don't make a mistake and not quite kill yourself because the medical bills in America are hideous.

I love to ride my bike, which is great aerobics, but also just a great time for me to think, so it's like this terrific double bill.

Improv. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but when it does, it's like open-field running.

Being a famous print journalist is like being the best-dressed woman on radio.

A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.

I never performed on drugs. That'd be stupid. It's the same thing with athletes. They can't perform when they have cocaine problems.

Along with the Oscars, the Academy is giving out a green card.

Even when I did my Broadway show, I did 15 minutes no one had seen before, because that was the night that Michael Jackson protested about Al Sharpton bailing on him. I said, "Wow, if that man bails on you, this must be really a lost cause."

Cross-country running was so beautiful with all the trails and the lake regions ... very physical and also a bit spiritual, where you could come over the mountain and all of a sudden you'd see a Buddhist landscape fog.

A woman wouldn't make a bomb that kills you. A woman would make a bomb that makes you feel bad for a while. That's why there should be a woman President. There'd never be any wars, just every twenty-eight days there'd be very intense negotiations.

It's frightening and exhilarating. It's like combat. Look at the metaphors: You kill when it works; you die when it doesn't.

There are times when life's just real quiet and simple. I sometimes get tired of people saying, "Well, what are you really like?"

We are surrounded by a lot of failed ecosystems; the moon being one, Mars, Venus. There?s evidence of water on Mars and rivers and it didn?t take. Also, we have planets to guard us like Jupiter and Saturn that take the hits of the comets. It is miraculous that we exist on this planet, that it took.

We were totally opposite - me coming from the West Coast and a junior college, and him [ Christopher Reeve] from the hard-core Ivy League. He used to be the studly studly of all studlies, and I was the little fool ferret boy.

No man is an island; but some are peninsulas.

The dramas for me allow me to explore more behavioral, deeper psychological things. But the comedies obviously allow me to explore the idea of really working off other people. I'm having more fun doing that.

With mountain biking, it's always that constant thing, negotiating singletrack, which I like, but for a road ride that rhythm is really Buddhist. When you get a good pedal stoke, it's that thing of everything works.

I just want to do movies, and I want to sell them. I don't want to link up with some product.

We Americans, we're a simple people . . . but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities.